In May we're showing off a huge selection of listening materials! Check out our audio and podcasts section for authentic interviews in 'Live from London'; the onestopenglish soap opera, The Road Less Travelled and serialized Macmillan Readers, the latest of which is The Well. For new subscribers there is also the chance to win an iPod nano, making it even easier to listen to podcasts when and wherever you want!

May also welcomes the latest characters from the Onestop Phonics series for young learners, Gertie Grape and Harry Hamburger. Keep your eyes peeled for letters Ii to Ll, which will also be published this month.

If you teach English to adults at beginner level, we'd really appreciate your help with our latest research. Click here to take part.

There's lots of other great content, so please take time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish.

The Moscow Institute of Linguistics - a Macmillan English Campus Case Study

The Moscow Institute of Linguistics (MIL) is one of the newest users of the Macmillan English Campus (MEC). MIL started using MEC in December 2007 and teaches students ranging in age from 12 to 60, at a variety of levels, from beginner to advanced.

We asked teachers at MIL to explain how they were using MEC and what benefits the implementation of a blended learning solution has brought.

A practical solution

Asked why MIL chose to adopt MEC, Vadim Klimachev, a senior teacher, says it provides the opportunity 'to make language learning highly effective, interesting, up-to-date and diverse'.

He describes the way in which, having been assigned to an appropriate course, 'the students are asked to complete a set of tasks within a specific period (normally a week or two); typical difficulties and mistakes are analysed and discussed in class with the teacher'.

One of the things that the teachers highlight is the flexibility that using MEC brings. As one teacher says, MEC 'can be used in accordance with students' individual needs. There is plenty of listening, which is often the most difficult aspect for language learners, and it can be used both in class and at home.'

Other teachers, asked how they use MEC, highlight its usefulness for homework and how, once exercises have been completed, it often leads to further discussion in class.

Learner autonomy

Students benefit from being able to work at their own pace, completing supplementary activities if necessary. Those who happen to miss a lesson can 'use MEC to go through material covered during a class they missed' and MEC also makes it easy to 'work on the aspects they need to revise'.

Other teachers also highlight the way that MEC 'offers students the opportunity to work independently' and provides 'a wide range of exercises on different topics'. They also note that many 'students are carried away by the process of testing their English on the internet and fulfil much more than the tasks set by the teacher!'

In this context, the automatic markbook is really useful, with teachers commenting that students enjoy 'the ability to check their results immediately and retry exercises'.

Teacher support

MEC also helps teachers to support students with greater effectiveness, due to its in-built monitoring facilities such as the markbook. Vadim highlights the 'ease of checking students' results and evaluating progress of their work'. Consequently, the time saved in lesson preparation and marking can be used to support students in other ways.

The approach taken by MIL works because of this complementary combination of face-to-face teaching and online resources.

Feedback about MEC and e-learning in general points to the fact that being able to use online resources increases motivation, and provides a structured and easy way to practise. In doing so, learner confidence is increased and results are improved. This produces a great result for the Moscow Institute of Linguistics!

Implementing a blended-learning programme can sometimes seem intimidating, due to the gaps in teachers' knowledge as to how technology can be used. To address this, new institutions using MEC are provided with comprehensive training and support. We are also on hand to provide advice and training further down the line.

We caught up with Steph Earnshaw and Sarah Milligan from the MEC training department and asked them about their role and the support they provide for teachers and students using MEC.

Steph and Sarah are both former English teachers, which makes them ideally suited to address the issues that teachers face. Asked about their favourite parts of the job, both agree that it is very satisfying giving teachers the tools that they need to use MEC effectively.

As Steph puts it, 'It's great to see how, at the end of the training, teachers are excited and full of ideas of how to use MEC with their students.' Sarah adds, 'It's very rewarding being able to ease the concerns of those teachers who may not be so used to using technology and to show them how straightforward MEC is to use.'

Online resources
One of the ways in which Steph and Sarah provide support after initial training sessions is in the provision of many different online resources. Asked to summarise what is available, Steph lists the guide to MEC, lesson plans, MEC basics material and dictionary skills worksheets. These are all available on the English Campus support site.

Clinics
Steph and Sarah have also been organising online training sessions, referred to as 'clinics', which are available free of charge to all users of the English Campus, whether new or established. This forms part of the ongoing support provided by the MEC team.

Feedback
If you're a current MEC user, you may have seen that the training team are currently carrying out a survey of all existing customers. Please do join in and return feedback forms to Sarah Milligan (s.milligan@macmillan.com) or contact her for more information.

March on onestopenglish sees the launch of the Onestop Phonics series for young learners, by Rachel Finnie. This great series will provide teachers with comprehensive support for their phonics teaching, including tips for structuring phonics lessons, as well as teacher's notes, worksheets, audio and flashcards to use in class. The first two instalments are free for all onestopenglish users, so come and join the fun with Alice Apple, Bobby Banana and friends!

This month we've also got a brand-new series of integrated skills video projects by Jackie McAvoy. In the first of these projects - At the movies - students produce their own audio or video recording of a movie review. We'll show some of the best programmes here on onestopenglish, so send us your entries!

There's lots of other great content so please take the time to explore and enjoy another packed edition of onestopenglish!

Macmillan English Campus announces the release of new American English TOEIC® material

Macmillan English Campus is delighted to be publishing over 100 new American English resources to support the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC®) exam from ETS. Written by experienced TOEIC® authors, the resources provide practice for all seven parts of the listening and reading exam.

The TOEIC® material also supports the new speaking and writing test from ETS, by providing a series of sample answers, with hints on preparing, timing and responding to typical questions.

With the broad range of coverage it provides, this exam practice material offers essential support to students wishing to take the new TOEIC®.

Key Features

• Exercises written by experienced TOEIC® authors
• Use of ETS-licensed TOEIC® rubrics
• Text and question types provide authentic exam practice
• Hints on how to answer TOEIC® questions in each listening and reading exercise
• Advice on planning, timing and answering the speaking and writing questions
• Exercises include over 400 questions
• Comprehensive coverage of the new TOEIC® exam
• Up-to-date section weightings, text types and question format
• Support of new TOEIC® speaking and writing test

To view more detailed information about the new exercises, please click here.

Since the first release of the Macmillan English Campus in 2003, we've been committed to expanding and updating the content available. In order to improve the design, add new features and allow us to develop new kinds of teaching material, we've just launched a new edition, which is now being rolled out to all our customers.

New features in the Macmillan English Campus include:

• Improved navigation - allowing users to find their way around with greater ease

• A new, updated look - with an improved design and more user-friendly interface

• Customization tools - letting users choose the graphic 'skin' they want and allowing institutions to include their logo on every page of the English Campus, in place of the MEC logo

• Improved user and course management - making administration of the English Campus much simpler

• More detailed usage statistics for institutions - allowing you to see how often your students are accessing the Campus and how they are progressing

Alongside this upgrade, we remain committed to continuing to publish fantastic new types of content in the future. Coming up next year:

• Test Compiler: over 600 new exercises across all levels available to teachers and administrators within MEC, allowing them to build tests and publish them to their students

• English for Academic Purposes content: a new flexible bank of EAP resources. This material will support both academic language, in the form of grammar and vocabulary, and essential study skills. It will also provide an introduction to life at an English-speaking university.

New CEF course pathways now available!

We are delighted to announce the publication of five new courses built to correspond to the levels of the Common European Framework (CEF) as well as 100 additional examination resources.

The CEF is recognized as a standard framework for language teaching around the world. Five new courses have been published to the English Campus, at levels A2, B1, B2, C1 and C2. These will make it much easier for new and existing users to align English Campus content with their existing language programmes, by providing a truly global basis for comparison.

British English users can also access six new courses structured to correspond to the Macmillan Inside Out and New Inside Out coursebook series. These join the existing In Company courses.

100 new exam preparation exercises for the Cambridge suite of examinations are now also available.

Combined with the existing database of 300 exam exercises, the Macmillan English Campus now offers an even more comprehensive resource for students working towards the BEC, CAE, CPE, FCE, KET and PET qualifications.

This new update brings the number of resources available within the English Campus to over 3,000.